Sneak Thief (A Dog Park Mystery) (32 page)

Lia screamed behind him.

Peter pounded down the trail hugging the west side of the park, searching for the cross trail linking it with the others. He scanned the woods for signs as he ran. If he missed the turn-off, it could cost Lia her life.
Shit, Dourson, you're always a day late and a dollar short when Lia runs into trouble. If you don't make it this time, you won't be able to live with it.

He found the cross trail, followed it to the first fork, turned back towards the nature center. The trail forked again.
Which way, which way?
He strained his ears to hear over the thundering of his heart.
Last time, both options were wrong.
He picked out a thrashing sound, and grunts . . . ahead, to his left. Peter took off again, rounded a curve. They were lying on the trail. Lia's struggles ceased as Fredo pinned her to the ground, whooping gleefully.

All thought left Peter's head. He dove forward.

Fredo's hand ripped away from Lia's throat as his weight flew off her back. She flipped over to see Peter grappling with Fredo, the men rolling and trading punches beside the trail. She pushed herself up off the ground and stumbled around, searching until she spotted a fat branch. She limped over to it and picked it up. It was two inches in diameter and over four feet long, trimmed during a tree removal and left on the ground to rot by a park worker. She turned towards the grunts and thuds of battle.

Fredo was on his back, trying to grab Peter's gun out of its holster while Peter struggled to restrain him. Lia approached, branch in hand, until she stood by the pair.

“Dammit, Lia, get out of the way!” Peter ordered, pausing, his fist in the air, panting. Fredo made another grab for the gun.

She stepped on Fredo's hand, coming down hard. He screamed. She eyed him cooly. Holding one end of the branch in both hands, Lia shoved the other end against Fredo's throat, pinning his head to the ground. Fredo's eye's wheeled like a spooked horse. Still standing on his hand, she transferred weight to the branch.

All movement ceased.

Fredo's eyes goggled.

“If you so much as twitch, I'm going to lean on this branch and shove it through your throat,” she gritted out. “But don't listen to me. Go ahead, punk. Make my day.”

“
I
had him
,” Peter grumbled. He hauled a now compliant Fredo up and shoved him back against the nearest tree, pulled his hands back around the trunk and cuffed him.

Lia sat on a stump. Her shoulders sagged as the adrenaline faded out of her system. She still held the branch, thumping it absently against the ground. Each time she did so, Fredo flinched.

“You did, but I wanted him. I'll let you have the collar. Will that do?”

“Okay then, Miss Sassafras.”

“God, Peter.” She rubbed a temple.

Shots sounded.

“It's not over yet, Babe.”

Peter pulled out his phone and called Hinkle. He knew from the radio chatter on the drive up that the officer was on site. The stand-off continued. “Keep him busy,” Peter said. “I'm coming. I'll send you a text when I need you to hold your fire.” He pocketed the phone.

“You're
leaving
me?”

“You'll be okay. Just keep that log pointed at his crotch. If he gives you any trouble, give it a good shove.”

Lonzo was so caught up with his personal shooting gallery, that Peter was able to slip up on him.

Peter assumed a shooting stance ten feet away with his gun trained on Lonzo's back, then shouted, “Freeze! Drop your weapon! Now!”

Lonzo whipped around, firing wildly, bullets spraying. Peter fired twice, catching Lonzo in the chest and shoulder. The gun tumbled out of Lonzo's hand as he fell. Peter advanced, kicking the gun out of reach. He stood over Lonzo, gun pointed at his head, while the young man screamed in pain.

“Did you have to shoot me? I'm hurt! Call an ambulance!”

“Oh, for the love of . . . .” Peter muttered. He leaned over Lonzo. “Shut up, punk. I was aiming at your head, and it's a damn shame I missed. It would be an even worse shame if you tried to take my gun back here where no one can see us.”

Peter saw fear and understanding in Lonzo's eyes. Satisfied, he yelled to the team in the parking lot. “It's over. Come get him.”

P
eter sniffed
the air when he walked into Lia's kitchen. “What are we having?”

“Chili.”

“You're making three-ways? Brent and Cynth will like that.”

“I'm making chili con carne. Chili with beef. Not chili with spaghetti and oyster crackers. No shredded cheese, either.”

“Sacrilege. You'll be run out of town. What happened to lentil sprouts? I thought that was the wave of the future.”

“Yeah, I did too. Then I got my blood work back from Dr. Jackson today. I found out I'm type O neg.”

“And this is meaningful because?”

Lia sighed. “I've been reading about the Blood Type Diet. Lentils are toxic for type O's. I can't have them anymore.”

“You can't have lentils?”

“No lentils, no avocados, no dairy, no peanut butter, no olives, no mushrooms except portabella . . .” Lia continued to tick off forbidden foods.

“Is there anything left?”

“There's beef. I can eat beef. Beef hearts, beef liver, I can have beef any way you can dream up. I can even eat beef testicles. Yum. ”

“A diet where you can still have burgers can't be all bad.”

“No burgers. I can't eat wheat, so no buns.”

“How are you going to manage that?”

“I don't know.” Her lower lip trembled. Peter took her in his arms, amused at her distress. She sniffed into his shirt.

“It means no more pizza,” she groaned. “And that's not the worst of it.”

“What could be worse than no more pizza?”

She looked up at him, a lone tear spilling down her cheek.

“Peter, I can't have
coffee
!”

“
T
hat necklace has an amazing history
.” Cynth said smiling warmly. She was sitting in Lia's living room drinking Red Zinger. Lia didn't know how she felt about seeing her. She hadn't talked to the computer detective since the blow up with Peter. Brent kept looking at Cynth with an odd expression while Cynth appeared unaware of any vibe.

Peter sat next to Lia on the couch, arm around her shoulder, perfectly relaxed. Boy Scout that he was, Peter could not be so casually affectionate in front of another woman he'd been sleeping with. Bailey was right. There never was anything to begin with, not on Peter's side. But she'd be having a chat with Cynth. As if reading her thoughts, Cynth winked at her.

Brent continued the story. “The trinket that caused all this trouble is a spinel mined and cut in the late 19th century belonged to Evelyn Hatch, a famous medium who used it to stimulate her visions. Evelyn knew all the occultists. She ran with the Golden Dawn, William Blake, Evangeline Adams, and Madam Blavatsky. She even met Aleister Crowley, and had the sense to say he gave her the creeps. Rumor has it the necklace was given to her by a secret lover who could not bring himself to leave his wife's millions.”

“Why would he give her such an odd stone?” Lia asked. “Why not give her an amethyst?”

Cynth explained, “Mystics claim spinel renews energy and helps one keep one's beauty, as the ‘stone of immortality.' The gift was very romantic if you were into Victorian Age occultism.

“Spinel has always been around. Until recently, stones were classified by color alone. Spinels come in all colors, but most old spinels were classified as ruby since so many of them are red. Spinel was first recognized as a unique gem in the 1850's. They are rarer than rubies, so rare that few people know about them. Since no one knows about them, nobody wants them. The few nerds who do know about them tend to treat them as inferior stones, which they aren't. Lack of good PR has always kept prices down.

“When Evelyn died, her heirs kept it as a curiosity and a memento of Grandma's occult leanings and wild years. Fast-forward several decades. Methods of gem identification became more sophisticated and new, rarer varieties of gems were discovered. Gemologists often tested old spinel to assess whether it might really be taaffeite, discovered in 1945, or musgravite, discovered in 1967.

“Alphonso Vasari fenced jewelry and antiquities for the ring of thieves Peter and I have been hunting. When they brought the necklace to Vasari as part of the haul from Judge Hatch's home, he told the gang that the necklace was an amethyst and played down its value. He said it wasn't worth selling and they let him keep it.

“Are you saying my stone isn't a spinel?”

“It's a musgravite,” Brent said, “and at 20 carats it's the largest known, faceted musgravite in the world. Vasari knew what he had, but he was stuck. The only way he could sell it would be to cut it into smaller stones, which he couldn't stomach, and which would never return anything like the stone's real value. He yearned for the stone to take it's place as the world's largest faceted musgravite and kept it for years hoping that some day the path would be clear for the stone to be what it was, even if he couldn't take credit for discovering it.”

“How did you learn all this?” Lia asked, fascinated.

“Vasari told us—Alfonso, that is,” Brent said. “It was his last chance to claim the stone, so he spilled the beans. He figured he didn't have much to lose, and he'd rather be known for stealing a historically significant gem than for being a crooked jeweler. With the statue of limitations up, nobody could prosecute him for the theft anyway, though he will go down for aiding and abetting Lonzo's shenanigans.”

“What about the rest of the gang?”

“It no longer exists,” Brent said. “Alphonso was the youngest of the gang. He took over for his father when the old man was ready to retire. The rest of the members have died or are next to dead in nursing homes. A couple have left the country and are out of reach. Alphonso said the younger generation lacked the discrimination and skill to do the worthwhile jobs. He cited Lonzo as case in point. He started his jewelry manufacturing sideline to make up the difference in his income while he waited for the right time to reveal the musgravite.”

“Why did he give it to Desiree if it was so valuable?”

“He didn't. Lonzo did. He'd been chasing Desiree, and she was putting him off with comments like “Give me jewels and I'll think about it.”

“She told me he was after her, but she didn't want to wreck her job because she really liked working there. So Lonzo didn't know what it was?” Lia asked.

“Alfonso never told Lonzo about it. He didn't trust him because Lonzo was keeping bad company and always looking for a quick score. Alfonso kept it hiding in plain sight on his workbench, masquerading as a simple amethyst pendant where he could look at it every day. Then Desiree Willis admired it and Lonzo didn't see the harm in using an old amethyst pendant to seduce her.

“When the old man realized the stone was gone, he accused Lonzo of taking it and threatened his life if he didn't get it back. But Lonzo never told his father it was Desiree he'd given it to. I think that's another reason Alfonso caved so easily. He was truly fond of Desiree. It was a real shock to the system to find out Lonzo killed her. He kept muttering about his serpent's tooth of a son.”

“Why did Lonzo shoot her?” Lia asked. “Why didn't he just ask for the stone back?”

“He said he did, and Desiree said she didn't have a clue were it was and didn't care. Apparently they'd had a falling out, so when she caught him in her apartment looking for it, she kept changing her story to torture him. First she said she flushed it down the toilet, then she said she threw it in the trash.

“Lonzo was threatening her with the gun, trying to get the truth out of her, but instead of being intimidated, Desiree attacked him. He says the gun went off by accident, though since she died while he was committing a felony, it's still murder.”

“I'm sure she didn't know where the necklace was because Julia had stolen it,” Lia said. “It would be just like her to mess with him about it if she were angry.”

“It's unlikely she had any idea what it was worth, but Lonzo convinced himself that she not only knew, she manipulated him into giving it to her and hid the stone from him.”

“Brent, How much
is
it worth?”

“I defer to Officer McFadden.”

Cynth scanned her notes. “Musgravite is currently valued at $35,000 per carat. . . . At $35,000, 20 carats comes to $700,000. Since large gems are worth more per carat than smaller stones, the value of this stone is easily in the millions.”

Lia grew faint.

“Unfortunately,” Brent said, “since the necklace was stolen, it's not yours. However, you can expect a nice finder's fee from the insurance company. I imagine you'll come out of this quite nicely, once the stone goes to auction and the value is established. You could wind up with a quarter of a million dollars or more.”

“Not quite enough for me to aspire to being a kept man, but enough to hang around for,” Peter deadpanned, giving Lia's shoulder a squeeze.

“Yes, dear,” Lia simpered. She patted his knee, then dug her middle finger into a convenient pressure point.

“Ow!”

Cynth winked at Lia.

“So this whole thing had nothing to do with Eric?”

Brent rubbed the back of his neck. “Not precisely.”

“I don't understand. Either he was involved or he wasn't,” Lia said.

“Eric . . . Eric was no killer, but he was a voyeur, and he had issues. I don't know if he ever would have harmed Desiree, though you don't know what would have happened if he'd confessed his feelings and Desiree rejected him,” Brent explained.

“We went over to his apartment today and had a look around,” Peter said.

“Do I want to know what you found?”

“Hundreds of little foil dolls, for one. We also found an alarm clock that had a spy cam hidden in it. The spy cam couldn't ‘see' Lonzo shooting Desiree because it was in the next room. But Julia here . . . ” He scratched behind Julia's ears. Lia could hear Viola grumbling until Peter resumed stroking her. “She activated the camera by jumping on the bed while they were arguing. It caught their voices, so there's no doubt Lonzo shot her.”

Lia's mouth formed an ‘O'. “There was a clock that disappeared from Desiree's bedroom—a little, blocky, black, plastic thing?”

“That's the one.”

“Eric knew we were cleaning out Desiree's apartment. If I hadn't told him, it would have still been there. Maybe we would have solved it sooner.”

“Doubtful. You had to know the specific order to push the buttons to activate it, and the slot for the memory card was out of view. Heckle and Jeckle didn't notice the cam. At that time, there were no grounds for anyone else to get involved. Likely, the clock would have been sold at your auction.”

“Then Eric knew? He had proof? Why didn't he go to the police?”

“We can only postulate,” Brent said, “since the man is dead. One of Eric's video files has Desiree in a ‘tete-a-tete' with Vasari the Younger—I want to make clear right now that I volunteered to view the videos to keep Peter's virgin eyes from being blackened when you found out about it. My own purity is of such caliber that it was at no risk of being sullied. Therefore, it was no sacrifice . . . .”

Lia and Cynth looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

“Meaning, as IT specialist, analyzing the videos was on my turf, but Officer Davis insisted on horning in.”

“Just doing my civic duty. It is entirely possible that despite the fact that Eric was tracking her every movement, he never made the connection to Vasari. All he had was a voice. The constabulary, meaning us, do not look kindly upon his brand of romance. It's probable he felt going to the police was more likely to put him in prison than catch Desiree's killer. But he clearly knew that Lonzo was looking for something, and when you took Desiree's possessions, he may have realized that you might be in danger.”

“He was
protecting
me?”

“I don't like it either, Babe,” Peter said. “But he did interfere when Lonzo and Fredo grabbed you at Belmont.”

“What about the dolls? He left me dolls. What was the point of that? Wasn't he obsessed with me like he was with Desiree?”

Cynth sat forward. “We don't know, Lia, but finding the dolls let you know someone was watching you, didn't it? Maybe this was his way to put you on alert without revealing himself.”

Lia frowned. “Now I feel bad.”

“Don't,” Cynth said. “He may have done the right thing in the end, but he also put you in danger. He could have sent a copy of the files to the police anonymously, but he didn't.”

Peter looked pointedly at Julia, who had wormed her way between him and Lia and was now fending off evil looks from Viola.

“All that's left is the dog.” He tugged on a lock of Lia's hair. “That's your department. Will you keep her?”

“She is adorable, but she's caused enough trouble. Dave Cunningham and his brother, Ed, are fighting over her.”